


vicissitude

by summerwoodsmoke



Category: Ars Paradoxica (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Disaster Relationship, Canon-Typical Violence, Content warnings:, F/M, Non-Linear Narrative, One-Sided Attraction, Season 2 spoilers, it doesn't go into any detail at all tho so don't worry about that sklfjlfg, me chanting: Chet Kills People
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-09-30 10:44:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10161392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerwoodsmoke/pseuds/summerwoodsmoke
Summary: "Part of the magic of Sally Grissom is the rush Chet gets when he remembers he knows a secret that only a handful of people in the entire world know."written in anticipation of the season 2 finale. still waiting for the other shoe to drop and these two to have it out, already, geez.





	

**Author's Note:**

> “Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

She won't stop glaring at him. He saw her before they turned the lights on, before they'd known he and the agents were here, and she'd looked—happy. Relaxed. Passionate. Like exactly the woman he'd been missing for so long.  
  
And then the lights went on, Chet and the agents took control of them all, at gunpoint, and now she's sitting in a chair glaring up at him, unerring. The gun is heavy in his hand under her gaze. She keeps it up till the second half of their fun little gang makes it back with Victor Lambert, and after. When he finally starts talking, he shoves that happy Sally out of his mind and focuses on the present. He isn't Chet here. He's the Director of ODAR.

* * *

  
  
After Vegas, Chet kept his distance from the science-ey residents of the town. He wasn't entirely sure they didn't hate him, even after a fairly nice evening and a terrifying, wondrous morning with Trinity and Sally and the Partridges. He kept his head down and did the work he was assigned to do, and stayed in the main, public parts of town.  
  
A week after the committee's visit to the Timepiece, he runs into Helen at the post office. (All ingoing and outgoing mail in Polvo is monitored and addressed with false addresses from a false place that isn't Polvo, but at least Chet can still write his mother. He assumes that's why public mail is allowed at all in a town that doesn't technically exist: the potential wrath of mothers unwritten.) Helen, surprisingly, invites him to a party she’s hosting. Chet fumbles and _uhm_ 's and _ah_ 's, and just the next night, here he is.

At the Partridges for a party that was undoubtedly organized and thrown by Helen almost completely single-handedly—it's too nice, too _organized_ to imagine an ODAR scientist like Partridge possibly having a hand in the preparations.  
  
Wyatt's already drunk by the time Chet gets there, and Chet almost decides to keep half an eye on him, but Roberts undoubtedly has her partner well in hand. She manages to keep him from drinking any more the rest of the night, somehow.  
  
Sally's in the corner with Barlowe, laughing at something she probably just said herself, because Barlowe looks more lost than Hansel in the woods. After almost two years, you'd think Sally would stop referencing things that don't exist yet, but when it comes to her fictional stories, she can't seem to stop.  
  
The hostess herself greets him a minute after he walks in the door. Her hand is warm in his; her smile is genuine. He relaxes, and only sorta by accident, kind of follows Helen around for a while, still cautious about the scientists of Polvo and their potential hatred for him. At some point, it's the Partridges and Sally and him discussing newspaper comic strips, of all things. Then, before he realizes it, Helen has successfully shed him onto Sally and is off doing good hostess things. He accepts his fate and sticks by Sally's side.  
  
Sally seems fine standing there, just the two of them, and he decides not to question it.  
  
"So, Chet—Petty o—Whickman." Sally makes a face at her drink. "You're not still a petty officer are you?" she asks her glass before taking a gulp. He gives her a look that she doesn't notice.  
  
"Why would a petty officer be in New Mexico?" he asks.  
  
She laughs. "You're right. You're an...agent now? Oh, oh—do we call you Agent Whickman now?"  
  
Chet furrows his brow, trying not to laugh. Sally is most definitely inebriated. Not as bad as Wyatt, but she's...giddy.  
  
"No, Sally, I'm just Officer Whickman."  
  
Sally looks crestfallen. "What? No! I just remembered the X-Files, it would be _so_ perfect if you were an agent like Mulder and Scully, investigating weird things, right? ODAR has anomalous in it, right?"  
  
Chet ignores basically all of that. "You know I'm just a glorified security guard, don't you?"  
  
Sally stares at him. He stares back, raises his eyebrows. She drops her head back and says, "Ugh, fine!" She sees Partridge then and moves to join him. Chet follows, because there isn't really anywhere else he'd rather be.  
  
By the end of the night, it's just the Vegas crew (sans Barlowe, who left with his wife hours ago), and Chet. He worries he's overstaying his welcome, but he can't exactly move from the couch.  
  
He can’t move, because Sally Grissom is asleep, her head resting on his shoulder.  
  
He's holding two glasses, hers and his, after hers nearly tilted out of her hand and onto his lap. Helen had met his eye and laughed lightly when he grabbed Sally's glass, but she didn't move to help him, so he was still there, a human pillow and drink holder. At least that meant Helen was fine with him staying so long.  
  
His shoulder is going numb, but he minds it a lot less than he really should. Sally's hair is frizzy and escaping its ties after a long day, and some of it brushes against his neck whenever he moves his head even the slightest amount. He sits as still as possible and watches as the others converse over Roberts and an almost-sober Wyatt's bizarre card game.  
  
Chet doesn't realize he's nodded off until Helen is taking the glasses out of his hand. He opens his eyes to see Partridge shaking Sally's shoulder, and she sits up with a groan. Chet watches her for a reaction, not sure if he's scared or...or hopeful, or what. What is he expecting?  
  
"My neck's gonna hate me tomorrow," is all Sally mumbles. He shouldn't be surprised.  
  
Chet rolls his shoulder thoughtfully and winces. "Yeah, humans aren't designed to sleep sitting up."  
  
Sally blinks and looks over at him. "Oh, this isn't even the weirdest sleeping position I've been in," she says as she stands up. Chet blinks. "Just seems the older I get, the less my body puts up with."  
  
"Well, yes, that's how it goes," Partridge says.  
  
Sally looks Partridge up and down. "Okay, _Grandpa_." She snorts. Chet disguises his laugh as a cough.  
  
Sally walks over to the door, where Roberts and Wyatt are putting on their coats. Chet thanks Helen for her hospitality before following.  
  
"You know you don't need to walk me home, right," Sally says after they split from the others. "Like, not only is it every bad movie cliche ever, we also live in the tiniest town ever. Nothing could possibly happen."  
  
Chet shoves his hands into his pockets. "Your house is on the way," he maybe-possibly lies. "What am I gonna do, go a longer way just to _avoid_ your fine company?" He leans over to make eye contact and a goofy face. Sally snorts again and he grins.  
  
"Of course not, Whickman. When is a sailor ever inefficient?"  
  
Chet laughs lightly. "Now you're getting it!"  
  
He leaves her at her door with a "Goodnight, Doc," before heading back the way he came, ready to walk for another solid half hour at least before he can get to bed.  
  
Every minute is worth it.

* * *

  
  
The stress of running ODAR without "running ODAR" finally catches up with him, and in the endless dark of the CAGE lit only by a flashlight, he breaks and tells Esther. All of it, or at least most of it. About Sally, and Bill, and Quentin. She doesn't share any secrets in return, but he doesn't much care. He doubts there are any secrets Esther Roberts has that match up to 'Some other version of me killed a man' or 'Our boss is dying because of time travel and I'm doing my best to both fix it and cover it up'.  
  
They both sleep for a bit, and when they wake up, there's about two hours left before the CAGE ends. Chet thinks of Sally and Anthony and Wyatt waiting on the outside, supposedly only seconds after they went in. He thinks of the last glimpse he got of Sally before the world went white, her wide-eyed panic. He thinks it much more likely for Esther to have a secret that matches up to what he feels when he thinks of Sally. He doesn't say anything.

* * *

  
  
He dreams he's in a bed not his own, next to a woman he knows he doesn't have any real claim to. He traces a hand up her arm and she rests her hand on his chest, over his heart. She looks at him with more openness and innocence that any Sally Grissom in any timeline has. He knows it's not real. He leans in anyway.

* * *

  
  
If you had told Chet in 1943 that his life would change for the better on the same day his best boots were ruined, he wouldn't believe you.  
  
Regardless, it happens, on the morning of the 28th of October, with a woman appearing in a flash of light, landing next to him on the deck of the Eldridge, and, once they got her on her feet, immediately throwing up on his boots.  
  
_Great_ , goes a sarcastic little voice in his head, but most of him is concerned for this obviously affected woman. He thinks she should be taken to the sick bay, but the Director has her arrested, put in the brig, so Chet sticks close by in hopes of making everything go a bit smoother, a bit easier for this mysterious woman. Elliot hands him a rag as he walks by, and Chet spends the first ten minutes outside of the brig listening to her moan while he wipes off his nicest boots.  
  
(He has two pairs; it wasn't like the contest for nicest boots was all that hard. It's unfortunate that the older, more worn pair is now his nicest, but he'll live.)  
  
"Take it easy, just take it easy, ma'am, you'll be alright," he tells her as she throws up on the brig floor. Again. Their ensuing conversation feels rather one-sided, like she's only half-awake and possibly delirious.  
  
"What's your name?" he asks as he hands her some water.  
  
She looks up at him through the bars, her face flushed and her eyes too wide, but her expression guarded. "Sally."  
  
"Petty Officer Chet Whickman. Nice to meet you." She sips her water. "Now listen, ma'am—"  
  
"Doctor," she interrupts.    
  
He blinks. A doctor. Interesting. He feels his curiosity towards her grow even more. "Sure. Okay, Doc."

* * *

  
  
"You win, plan foiled. I just wanna hear him." Sally's eyes are glassy and the tops of her cheeks are bright red. Chet takes half a step back and watches coldly as Sally cries over a dying man.  
  
Chet doesn't regret the deaths he's caused. He's had his reasons for each one, and the reasons were good, and the world is better as a result. (He tells himself this as often as he needs to.)  
  
He regrets the tears on Sally's face, the break in Sally's voice as she cried, "Whickman! Get a medic in here!", but he doesn't regret it enough. Not enough to take that half step forward, to comfort Sally if she'd let him, to leave his too-warm gun on the ground. Not enough to use the Timepiece or to contact the Blackroom and redo that day.  
  
The man, Sharma, was an unknown, probably a threat. Just because Sally was too trusting to see it didn't mean Chet didn't have to do something about it.

* * *

  
  
Part of the magic of Sally Grissom is the rush Chet gets when he remembers he knows a secret that only a handful of people in the entire world know.  
  
Something as simple as seeing Sally talking to a cashier as he bags her groceries in Point-of-Exile's single, small grocers is enough to make Chet want to grin. _She's from the future, you know,_ he thinks. _She contains multitudes none of us could ever fathom, probably._ He wants to shout it out for everyone to hear but the secret is better than the possibility sharing, so he stays quiet. (And also, of course, the threat of Bill Donovan and his job and so forth.)  
  
Chet's lips twitch and he walks past the counter to pick up the bread he came for. Sally doesn't notice him, dealing with her change, fumbling with it before hefting her bag into her arm. She shakes some hair out of her face, and Chet thinks of multitudes.  
  
"Have a nice day, miss," the cashier says.  
  
"It's Doctor," Sally says over her shoulder as she leaves. Chet laughs at the bread display.  

* * *

  
  
"I'm saying that you've always had a soft spot for her," he barks at Esther, and what he said comes back and hits him like a train, but he keeps going, keeps berating Esther for getting them into this mess when it's only barely half her fault. He shoves his blame away, and with _soft spot, soft spot, soft spot,_ ringing in his ears, he shoves that blame onto Sally.  
  
Let her take the fall. It's exactly what she's doing anyway, right?  
  
Let her shoulder his anger. It's not like she'll ever know, the way she's ignoring him.  
  
Let her drift away, grow her garden, be alone, exactly like she wants. They have the Timepiece, the Blackroom. Esther (against his better judgement) will get the future phone device from Sally.

  
ODAR is what matters. America is what matters. A woman who decided to trust a stranger over her closest friends does not.

* * *

  
He dreams he's in a bed not his own. The body of Nikhil Sharma lies next to him, blood soaking the sheets beneath him. He tries to sit up but it's like the air is thick and heavy, like he's underwater. Sally kneels between him and Sharma. She's angry. You win, she says. You win. Her hands are shiny with Sharma's blood; she rests them on his chest, staining his shirt, over his heart.

* * *

  
After how dramatically 1946 ended, what with Bill and Anthony and Sally, the new year blossomed into something relatively quiet. Chet establishes himself as the head of ODAR, works with Hank to establish ODAR as a credible organization of the government, and works with Esther to establish the work they do and progress they make. They figure out how to best use the Blackroom to their advantage. They build a fake hospital, ostensibly for any and all future victims of timetravel and/or working for ODAR, but mostly for Sally while she sleeps. Every day, something new rises up to greet the newly appointed Director Whickman. He feels most days Amelia's organization skills are the only thing that keeps him sane.  
  
Time without Sally as a daily fixture moves in a viscous sort of way, slow and thick. It's hard enough to get ODAR off the ground when Esther is the only original Timepiece scientist left, but he also just...misses Sally. He misses having someone to turn to when he just needs a break, or a good laugh, or someone to verbally spar with without any consequences.  
  
He tries to visit her in the hospital when he can, but honestly, it doesn't feel like anything. He feels alone even when he's standing right next to her bed. He stops going on his own and just tags along with Esther’s visits when he can.    
  
Another Christmas comes and goes and Chet hates to think it but he's losing hope. Esther sees improvement, but Chet has this image of an aged Bill Donovan in his mind, a man who lost decades of life just to regain the ability to speak again.  
  
On New Year's Eve, he and Esther go to the jazz club. They watch a band perform, and she manages to convinces him, buzzed as he is, to dance a number with her. ("I've got two left feet," he apologizes after stepping on her the second time. "It's fine," she replies with a raised eyebrow. "I've got steel toes.")  
  
As midnight approaches, the club puts on the radio as loud as it will go, and they listen to a tinny Denver crowd count down to 1948. As the crowd reaches _one,_ Esther gives him a hug and he kisses her cheek. The crowd engulfs them and Chet gets more hugs and kisses, slaps on the back and handshakes from strangers than he can count. He loses sight of Esther but he's not worried. Chet pushes through the crowd to the table where they'd been sitting earlier. He suddenly feels drained. Empty. The band is leading the crowd in singing Auld Lang Syne. For a bunch of mostly drunk people, they don't sound half-bad, but Chet doesn't want to be here anymore. The mood is gone for him.  
  
He gathers his coat, makes sure he has his work keys, and makes for the 'hospital'. Esther's worked it out so Sally can be left alone for intervals, to give the nurses and aides nights off. So the hospital is dark when he arrives, all but one of the lights off. He lets himself in and makes his way through the dark to the distant light in Sally's room.  
  
All the machinery surrounding Sally's bed is still on, ready to alert Esther, or Amelia, or maybe him, even, if something changes.  
  
It never changes.  
  
Sally ticks, like this. Her and her bed and her machinery spend one second in the world, two seconds out of it. The resultant flicker, the tick, is something hard to notice during the bustle of the day, but in the quiet, dark first hours of the day—of this year—it's pronounced.  
  
There's a line marked on the floor to stop people from accidentally getting wrapped up in the CAGE. Chet's done that once; he's not keen on doing it again. He stands with his feet toeing the line, still a little buzzed, studying Sally intensely. Her face is calm and smooth. Her chest rises and falls continually, from what he can tell through the tick. He can barely hear her breathing over the soft beeping of the machines, but he focuses on that, hones in on that life sound, that proof that she's still there, somewhere, even if she's not _there_.  
  
Chet turns and falls into a chair. He's tired, and alone, and mopey on New Year's Day. He'll stay here with Sally awhile longer, but then he'll go home and sleep. On January 2nd, Amelia will call him with the weather like she always does, and he will go to work as Director Whickman, ready to make whatever decisions needed for his people, for his country.  
  
But for now, he's just Chet. Alone in the dark, despite the body and light next to him.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! kudos and comments are much appreciated.
> 
> hansel is not the sibling that was ever lost in the woods but tbh i kept the line in because i don't think chet knows or cares
> 
> come find me at twitter.com/alinastarkovas or tanosoka.tumblr.com!


End file.
